More DIY Christmas

Before I show you my recent projects, can we pause just a minute and look at the acronym DIY? DIY stands for Do It Yourself, but I'm thinking it should be DIM ... Do It Myself. On the other hand, DIM doesn't sound as perky as DIY, does it? Oh, well. Perhaps it doesn't pay to examine these things too closely.

Back to the subject of this post, this year I made my Christmas cards. I was a little late making them, but I did get them finished and mailed. This year I bought some card stock at JoAnn's (50% off) and cut the sheets in half. They were the perfect size for the front of a Christmas card made from card stock -- 2 cards to one 8 1/2 x 11 sheet.

Then I used glittery, sparkly gold thread and stitched a tree shape on the colored card stock (I used a variety of colors ... burgundy, teal, spring green, tan, etc). I made a star stamp (using an eraser) and used the round eraser on a pencil to stamp & emboss gold designs on the tree. These pictures show one of the embossed trees and a couple of unfinished examples. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the finished card. Wish my pictures were better. Sigh.

Now, for my gift tags. I have some purchased tags left over from previous years, but I wanted to make my own this year. Since our kids come here for Christmas, any gift we put under the tree is obviously from us, so there's no need to say To: (child's name) From: Mom & Dad over and over again. Just the To information is important. As a result, I decided to do a real simple design. I cut some circles from red cardstock and used white paint (the kind that comes in a bottle with a teensy tip) and I put white dots all around the outer edge of the circle. Then I printed a monogram that I got from Martha here http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/click-print-monogram-labels?backto=true and printed them on white cardstock. I cut out the white circles and glued them to the red circles. You can see how imperfect the circle and dots are. But ........

I think it looks nice on the packages. Sort of classy & distinct.

Last but not least, yesterday I monogrammed some gold napkins I got at a thrift store earlier this year. I really love the font I used. For my Christmas table I have a special crochet tablecloth I use each year (made by Grandma Moses' sister ... really ... no kiddin' ... I got it at an auction in Vermont years ago just after the sister passed away). Anyway, I use touches of gold here and there on the table and it looks sort of lacy and lush and I LUV IT. And I think these new-to-me napkins will add a nice elegant touch.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my DIY (DIM) projects. I'm havin' fun!

A Few DIY Christmas Projects

As usual, I've been a very BIZZY bee. I've only created a few things this Christmas ... the rest are ... as we said when we were little country kids .... store boughten.

I've made several of these scarves. Earlier in the year I bought a Knitty Gritty (with a coupon at JoAnn's) and I've been knittying my buxx off!

I used this tutorial to make the matching organza flower brooch. http://www.reesedixon.com/2009/03/organza-flowers.html I used 3 freshwater pearls for the center. Sorry about the fuzzy picture.

And I used this tutorial to make the felted wool brooch. http://ohsocrafty.blogspot.com/2009/09/felted-wool-flowers.html These flowers are so much fun to make. I'm using felted sweaters and some of the wonderful felted wool TexNan sent me.

I attempted to make a wine bag using burlap with a silk lining for DH's boss, but my dimensions were wrong and I messed up on some decorative stitching -- it's a lot harder to sew on burlap than I had envisioned. For the embroidered part of it, I used tear-away interfacing underneath the burlap and water-soluble stabilizer on top .... sort of a burlap sandwich ... so the burlap didn't ever touch the sewing machine -- easy breezy. Then I tried to do some fancy stitching without stabilizer of any sort -- didn't work. Sigh.

But isn't the design purdy? I love this font.

Soooo, I made this one instead. It's a silk-look poly.

And I made two of these for the ladies that work for DH.

Notice the little jewels? There are 7 on this design. Do you want to know how hard it is to peel the paper backing off teensy little jewels with big fat adult fingers? First, just separating the paper from the jewel and then the darn thing gets stuck to your fingernail. ARGHH! I don't use jewels often enough to warrant getting one of those tools for bedazzling, so I use the low-tech peel and stick method. That said, I really do like this design and will do it again.




I still have a few more projects to finish before Christmas, but that's all for now. Have a merry!

Once Upon a Christmas

I'm attempting to attach music to my blog.

Guess I put it in the wrong place!! Oh, well.

Since it wound up here in my post I'll just leave it while I'm figuring this thing out.

You can click the start button above and listen to a lovely song (Selah with Dolly Parton) while you enjoy a few family Christmas pictures from this weekend.

After looking the pictures over again, I realized they're almost all of sweet Maxton! Oh, well, he was probably the cutest one there -- enjoy!

Maxton and the train. Hmmm .... interesting!

Hey! Where did it go?

It went down that way!

Wait, there it is again!

Oh the wonder of a little boy and a model train.

And the discovery of a piano. I think a little boy should help the song a little bit down there on that end of the piano. Makes the song better!

A little solo performance by Max. First the "warm-up"

The triumph of success! Give yourself a good hand, sweet boy.

All in all it was a wonderful day for the whole family.